Tag: Organic

We are making some major changes in our farm to keep the farm profitable and sustainable, and to reduce our work load. We are closing our farm store and self-service egg refrigerator at the end of the year. We have frozen chickens, convenience packs, honey, Everyday Miracles Salve and lamb available as long as supplies last. Next year we will be selling strictly wholesale to stores. We will continue to produce our pasture raised eggs and sell them in the stores that are currently carrying them and will likely add a few new stores.

Next year we will not be raising broiler chickens or turkeys, and we will not have eggs or other products for sale here at the farm.

Earlier this summer we felt that God might be directing us to stop raising broilers and turkeys and stop selling retail here on the farm. We decided to wait until Thanksgiving to make the final decision. As time went along we discovered more and more reasons why we should stop raising broilers and turkeys and close the farm store. We will not list them all, but the main reason is to reduce our work load. Farming is hard work and requires long hours. It is time to make some changes. We do not want our children to get discouraged and feel like a sign I saw recently which said: “Because of the heavy work load, the light at the end of the tunnel has been turned off!”

We have felt exhausted like this more than once this year!

Much of “Sustainable Agriculture” is not Profitable Or Sustainable
In explaining why we are closing our on-farm store, I think it is important to explain where agriculture is financially here in America – how we got where we are, and how we as sustainable farmers have been trying to make things work financially.

In a speech given on Oct. 21, 2007, former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan explained that the Federal Reserve has been involved in financial engineering in the U.S. using a technique called “Creative Destruction” to move people out of lower paying jobs such as farming, manufacturing, and the textile industry into higher paying jobs such as health care and education. The result has been that farming, which years ago was a profitable business enterprise, has become unprofitable for most farms. (See my article on Creative Destruction in the May 2008 newsletter at: http://www.jehovahjirehfarm.com/articles/2008/05/12/creative-destruction-related-to-farms/)

Let that sink in. Do you know of any other profession where most of the businesses are not making any money for labor even in the good years? Most of the farmers in America are working for free. Actually, with a farm loss, many are paying to work for “free”. This is ridiculous and is not sustainable. Anything that is not sustainable will sooner or later come to an end. And then where will the food come from? Think of that the next time you see the bumper sticker – “No Farms, No Food”. The thing that so far has kept farmers going is their passion for farming. They love to farm and will do whatever is possible to keep on farming, even if it means farming for free. But sooner or later, the reality of what they are doing will dawn on them, or some event will happen that will force them to stop farming.

As our family evaluated whether we should continue to raise broilers and turkeys and operate our farm store, we realized that something had taken place in the sustainable agriculture movement that we did not see before. Since most farms were not really making money from farming, we were encouraged by people like Joel Salatin, sustainable agriculture seminar speakers, and county extension agents to sell our products directly to the public through farmers markets, CSA’s, and on-farm stores so that we could get the retail dollar for our products. That worked. It enabled farmers to get some money to put toward their living expenses. Other farms have added agritourism to keep their farm going.

What we as farmers did not fully realize is that by selling retail, we were actually adding a new business enterprise to our farm. When a store sells a product at retail price, they have a lot of labor, overhead, and other costs that go along with selling the product. The difference between the wholesale price and the retail price is not free money as many farmers tend to look at it. It takes a lot of time, planning, marketing, and preparation behind the scenes to sell directly to the consumer. What is happening is that the farmer is working for free on the farm to produce food for others, and then working a second job in retail (selling at farmer’s markets, a CSA, or on-farm store) which is actually providing their income.

Selling retail makes the farmer’s work load greater for another reason. The farmer has to have a variety of products to sell if he/she is going to attract customers to their farm market stand, CSA, or farm store. If a farmer had only one product, such as eggs or one kind of tomatoes, they would not sell very much. Each product or vegetable takes time to produce. Because of the limited retail market at each location, the farmer can’t take advantage of the economy of scale like large farms do in reducing the production cost per item. In a Weston A Price, Wise Traditions Magazine article titled “The Real Cost of Real Food”, one man shared how that with his 100 hens he would have to get $11.52 a dozen for his eggs in order to get paid $10 an hour to produce them. (http://www.westonaprice.org/health-topics/the-real-cost-of-real-food/) Because of the need for a variety of products, some sustainable farmers are producing products at a loss in order to have products to draw customers to their farm or farmer’s market stand. Those loss-leader products represent a lot of labor over the course of a year that never gets paid for, and means that the farmer has to work more even more hours at something that does make money.

Selling retail works, but we have been hearing from many sustainable farmers in the last several months how exhausted they are. They feel like they can never get everything done that needs to be done. Sheri Salatin, who with her husband Daniel (Joel Salatin’s son) manages Polyface Farm in Virginia, stated several weeks ago in a blog post: “I’ve been way too busy this year and to be brutally honest, if every year is going to be this hard, I’m ready to quit. No it’s not been a bad year. No, there was nothing tragic. I’m almost embarrassed to admit, because I know many out there who have had some major health concerns or lost loved ones this year. It has just been one of those years where… Let’s see, how can I explain it? Well, I have a list of things to get done every day and if I don’t plan my day and run it ‘just so’ not everything that I needed to get done that day will get done. And nothing on the list is optional for another day.” (http://polyfacehenhouse.com/2015/11/farm-wife-friday-a-farm-table-discussion/)

In the comments section, almost every response is from a farm woman who is feeling much the same way as Sheri.

What I have shared with you about what is happening in sustainable agriculture is negative and discouraging. I share it to help you understand why we feel it is important to close our retail sales and the extra work load that it creates. But we are not feeling negative or discouraged about our farm. Instead, we are looking forward to the future and staying sustainable. Selling eggs wholesale to stores is a profitable enterprise for us. We are getting paid for our farm labor. The name Jehovah-Jireh means “the Lord will provide”. We feel that one of the ways God has provided for us is by showing us how to make a living from our farm.

We are moving forward. We recently converted our pullet raising shelter into another hen shelter and bought some more organic hens. We are still caring for the same number of birds, and the labor is much the same, but the hens are producing an income whereas raising baby egg layers did not produce an income. The increase in egg income should more than offset the loss of on-farm sales. Our family feels like the light at the end of the tunnel has suddenly gotten brighter. We are looking forward to a break from a very, very busy summer and fall. Closing the farm store and some of our other farm enterprises will enable us to give more attention to the hens so that we can hopefully provide even better eggs for you. We will miss seeing those of you that come to the farm, but you will still be able to buy our eggs and BARC pet food in the stores. We plan to continue to keep in touch with the farm newsletter, and will probably send it out about three or four times a year.

This fall we are adding a “Winter Garden” to each of our hen shelters. Previous to this, at the south end of the hen shelters there was a fenced area with wood chips on the ground which we called the picnic area. It was a place where we could confine the hens when the pasture was too wet, there was snow on the ground, or the pasture conditions did not permit the hens to be on the pasture that day. It is an important management tool to keep the pastures from being destroyed. By covering the picnic area with a greenhouse, the hens can now enjoy dry bedding and the heat of the greenhouse on those cold winter days in January and February. In the Spring the plastic on the sides will be rolled up and the roof covered with white plastic giving them a large open air pavilion. Hens, like us, do not like the hot sun in the middle of a summer day. It will provide more shade for them to lounge around in while they wait for the cool of evening to come so they can range the pastures before bedtime.

The hens are already enjoying dust bathing, scratching and just being in the Winter Gardens.

Note: Using organic farming methods to sequester carbon in the soil is an important subject that was presented to our government officials several weeks ago. Since I wrote part one, I found out that Mark Smallwood, the director of Rodale Institute, walked from Rodale Institute in Pennsylvania to Washington D.C. to hand deliver a White Paper detailing research proving that regenerative organic agriculture can absorb carbon from the atmosphere and reverse climate change. The White Paper is titled: Regenerative Organic Agriculture and Climate Change, A down-to-earth solution to global warming. The full text of the White Paper can be found at: http://rodaleinstitute.org/regenerative-organic-agriculture-and-climate-change/
Incidentally, Mark Smallwood used to work for MOM’S Organic Market in their main office in Rockville, MD. and also helped us one time to process chickens at our old farm.

We today have an important opportunity to make a significant step forward to sequester carbon, build topsoil, control erosion, and feed the world through organic farming. There are many that are greatly concerned that we have irreparably harmed the environment, are destroying life, and leaving future generations with an environmental mess because our excessive use of fossil fuels. Many feel hopeless and that too many people do not care what they are doing to the environment.

There is hope!

Plants to a large extent were the original source of our present day fossil fuels. Plants are also a key element in recycling energy and putting the CO2 gasses back into the soil where they belong.

There are a number of ways to sequester carbon in the soil. What I want to share with you is a simple, easy method that we have used here at Jehovah-Jireh Farm.

In the first seven years here on this farm we have sequestered approximately 325,570 lbs of Soil Organic Carbon on 35 acres. That represents recycling as much CO2 as the yearly output from approximately 146 cars. That was accomplished by increasing the soil organic matter on most of the farmland by almost one percentage point. That is without spreading organic matter or fertilizers other than lime. The only manure was the droppings from chickens when they are on the pasture and from the sheep and cows while they are grazing. The amount of carbon sequestered is according to soil tests that were taken at the end of 2013. It represents the carbon sequestered in the top six inches of soil, although there has been much more carbon than that sequestered at greater depths in the soil.

The method that we used to sequester the carbon was letting the grass grow a foot or more tall and then grazing or mowing the grass and letting it decompose into the soil. This is a method that we discovered as we mowed the grass in the American chestnut orchard located here on the farm and observed the significant increased growth of the grass and the increased growth, vigor, health, and blight resistance of the American chestnut trees. Mowing pasture grasses is one of the best, the easiest, and cheapest of fertilizers.

Grasses often have more root mass and depth than the mass and height of grass above the ground. When the grass is mowed from a height of 24″ down to 4″, the roots slough off to correspond to the amount of grass left above the surface. As these roots that sloughed off decompose, they build organic matter in the soil to the depth the roots had been. It is not just the organic matter on the surface of the ground from the mowed grass that contributes to the organic matter of the soil.

Pasture based farming, using rotational grazing and managed mowing, is an important method of sequestering carbon in the soil in a very stable manner. Rodale Institute has proved that the proper organic crop growing methods are also an important carbon sequestering method. It is my opinion from my observations and research that pastures can sequester carbon faster, easier, to a greater depth, and have it more stable in the soil than can be accomplished with organic crop farming methods. That does not mean that sequestering carbon by organic crop farming methods is unimportant; it is important. But what it means is that globally we can sequester much more carbon by raising animals on pasture in pasture based systems rather than growing grain and feeding the animals grain in confinement operations. Plus, the grass-fed meats with higher omega-3 fatty acids are much more healthy for the consumer. Typical response of grasses to grazing. Above ground growth is more lateral and roots “die back” to match needs of above ground biomass. Diagram C. Luke 2011 http://www.sonoma.edu/preserves/prairie/management/restoration.shtml

http://kansasgraziers.blogspot.com/2013_10_01_archive.htmlUp to 90% of a plant’s mass is in its root system. What is below the soil is much more important for sequestering carbon than what is above the soil. The plant on the far right has much more root mass than the mass that is in the grass above the soil level. The grass clump on the far left sloughed off most of its roots when it was cut short. The roots can then decompose and build carbon deep in the soil where it will be stable and stay in the soil for a very long time.
The above illustrations show the importance of managing plant roots by grazing and mowing to build carbon in the soil. The roots below the soil are more important for sequestering carbon than the grasses above the soil. This is significant, because it allows us to utilize the grass for feeding livestock and producing an income from the land while at the same time using the roots to sequester carbon deep in the soil, making the soil more drought resistant, reducing rain run off and erosion, and making the soil more fertile.

The depth that carbon is sequestered in the soil is important. Carbon that is greater than 12″ deep (30cm) is very stable in the soil. The Rodale Institute’s White Paper points out the importance of depth in the sequestering of carbon:
“It is likely that current data sets underestimate soil organic carbon stocks in organically managed systems because soil carbon is often measured at plow depth when recent findings suggest that more than half of the soil organic carbon stocks are likely in the 20-80cm depth. Beyond 30cm in the soil profile, the age of carbon increases continuously, much of it persisting for thousands of years. How carbon acts in this subsoil range is poorly understood, but increasing rooting depth, application of irrigated compost (compost tea), choosing deep rooted grass-legume cover crops and encouraging earthworm abundance are all promising pathways for introducing carbon to depths where it is likely to remain stable over long periods.” (p. 10)

To get the greatest depth of roots in the soil, it is important that grasses be allowed to grow at least a foot or two in height before grazing or mowing. Grasses in home lawns will not be able to contribute much to carbon sequestering because they are never allowed to grow very tall.

One more plus to mowing pastures in addition to sequestering carbon is that it creates a beautiful manicured farm landscape. Beautiful pastoral farm landscapes do a soul good like a medicine. We need to create more beauty around us.Our charcoal/biochar kiln experiment at Jehovah-Jireh Farm.
In 2009 we experimented with making charcoal to sequester carbon and to build up our soils. Inside this charcoal kiln were five metal 55 gallon barrels filled with split firewood. We made six batches of charcoal to use in the garden and in the chicken bedding. Making charcoal/biochar is labor intensive. In half of our garden, we applied about an inch and a half of charcoal and incorporated it in the top six inches of soil in a three foot wide by 70 feet strip perpendicular across the various rows of vegetables . Unfortunately, we did not see any improvement in growth, drought resistance, or brix improvement to the plants grown in the charcoal enriched soil in any of the years since then. Five years later, there is no noticeable difference in the color of the soil where the charcoal was applied.

Our experiment with biochar was not successful. It does not mean that charcoal/biochar is an ineffective method of sequestering carbon in the soil. The Terra Preta soils in South America show otherwise. Charcoal/biochar is a method that needs more research.

There is much more to learn about how to sequester carbon and to build topsoil using atmospheric carbon. We want to experiment with increasing the brix (sugar content) of our pasture grasses. By increasing the photosynthesis of the plant leaves, the sugar (and carbon) content of the plant can be increased. The plant sends these sugars to the roots to feed the roots and microbes in the soil. By increasing the sugars in the plant, we should be able to significantly increase the carbon sequestration in the soil.

There is much more that we would like to experiment with to improve the soil. We thank you for your support of our farm in buying our farm products. Your support is what enables us to do these experiments in our living laboratory (the farm).

With the heat of summer and trying to stay cool, be careful about too much recycling—recycling your most important food, the air you breathe. Air is our most important food, because without it, we will only live a few minutes. The utility companies, with a singular focus on energy conservation, have been encouraging us to seal up our houses tighter and tighter so that no air will pass through the windows, doors, or other places. They are focusing on energy consumption and not on people’s health needs. The end result is that many people are recycling their air and breathing their own exhaust this summer as they try to stay comfortable in their sealed insulted refrigerator houses and offices.

Carey Reams taught that 80% of the energy that we as human beings need for health and bodily function comes from the air. Only 20% comes from the food we eat. I have not been able to verify that 80% is an accurate figure, but in my research, I have found that it is true that we get significantly more energy from the air than from our food. For example, a person who burns 2000 calories a day in exercise will consume about 2000 calories of food. However, not all of those calories consumed are used by the body. Some of the calories are excreted in the urine and bowels. Therefore, there is more energy being used by the body than is coming from the food. In addition, the human body is putting off infrared light. One person estimated that it took about 2000 calories to produce that infrared light and heat. Those calories had to come from somewhere other than the food.

It is easy to forget about the importance of pure “organic” (chemical free) high quality air for our health because we can’t see air and air is free. In a sealed-up, air conditioned building, there is not only a depletion of oxygen, but there are also chemicals trapped inside. There are chemicals in the air from the carpet, the furniture, the glues in plywood and particle board, the paint, and many other sources. These chemicals are toxic to our bodies.

One disease in particular, cancer, thrives in an environment where there is little or no oxygen. One of the best defenses against cancer is oxygen.

Our family’s solutionOur family has chosen not to have air conditioning. The heat outside does not seem as hot when we don’t have air conditioning as when we live in air conditioning and then go outside into the heat and the heat hits us in the face. One of the advantages, too, of an older home like ours is that there are fewer chemicals in the materials it is constructed with.

We also sing together in the morning as a family about four times a week. Singing develops the lungs and makes the lungs more efficient in absorbing oxygen.

This picture was in the March 2013 newsletter in the article: “Crazy Farmers Eat Two Breakfasts”. A keyboard, because it is always in tune, is better to sing with than a piano unless the piano is diligently kept in tune. For Christmas I bought Cathy a new Yamaha keyboard that has a much clearer sound than this Casio keyboard. We have been amazed at the difference the clarity of sound from the Yamaha keyboard has made on our singing in the last six months. It has enabled us to tune our voices closer to each other and to make a more tight and beautiful blend of our voices.

We also use hydrogen peroxide in our swimming pool. Swimming in the pool is like an oxygen therapy bath. It cleans the skin and is refreshing. The hydrogen peroxide keeps the water in the pool sparkling clean without chlorine.

Recycling is good and is important unless it is recycling your breath exhaust. Then it is too much recycling! Have a healthful and oxygen filled summer.

For more on the importance of air, read the following two newsletter articles:

A month or two ago, someone gave us a used egg carton from another egg company. On the front of its full-color label, the company proudly advertised: “No Antibiotics!”

Technically, they were right. Technically, however, they were very wrong. In 2010, Monsanto patented glyphosate (commonly known as “Roundup”) as an antibiotic. Glyphosate is the #1 herbicide in the US, with 180-185,000,000 pounds of glyphosate used in 2007 (the latest year that the EPA gives statistics for). To put that in perspective, “regular” antibiotics used in agriculture totaled almost 29,000,000 pounds in 2009. In other words, over 6 times more glyphosate was used than regular antibiotics.

But glyphosate is no ordinary antibiotic. It might be called a “reverse antibiotic”. It kills good bacteria, such as those that inhabit our intestines—and stimulates harmful bacteria. And it was this antibiotic that was being fed to the chickens who laid the “no antibiotics” eggs!

For years, Monsanto advertised Roundup as “safe” and “biodegradable” and told us it was neutralized when it touched the soil; that is, until they got in legal trouble because the facts didn’t line up with their claims. Roundup is a chelating agent that binds with other substances and makes them unavailable. When glyphosate binds with clay particles in the soil, it is immobilized and remains attached to that clay particle until it either breaks down (a process that can take years) or is released in the soil. Therefore, repeated applications of Roundup have the potential to accumulate in the soil.

In 1996, genetically engineered crops hit the market, and by 2012, around 90% of the corn and soy grown in the US were GMO. Most of these crops are designed to be sprayed with Roundup while they are growing to kill weeds growing in the field, without killing the crop. Now, instead of only spraying their fields prior to planting, farmers could spray Roundup at any time they desired. What this means is that a systemic antibiotic (glyphosate/Roundup) is being sprayed directly on our food, absorbed by the plants and spread throughout their tissues. Roundup is also sprayed pre-harvest on crops such as wheat, barley, sugarcane and lentils to control weeds and to get uniform dry-down of the plants.

And? Does it matter?

In 2012, Gilles-Eric Séralini and his team of researchers shocked the world with graphic pictures of rats with huge tumors from exposure to Roundup Ready foods and Roundup.From left to right: a rat fed GMO corn grown without Roundup; a rat fed GMO corn grown with Roundup; a rat given non-GMO corn, with a trace amount of Roundup in its drinking water.

“Séralini designed his 2012 study as a direct followup of a previous study on the same NK603 maize conducted by Monsanto to support its application for regulatory authorization…

“Séralini’s findings were alarming: both GM maize NK603 and Roundup caused serious kidney and liver damage and an increased and earlier development of tumours, leading to an increased rate of mortality.

“These serious effects had not shown up in Monsanto’s 90-day test because it was too short. Serious diseases like organ damage and tumours take time to develop and become obvious…

“…in Séralini’s study the first large tumours were only seen four months into the trial in the case of males and seven months in the case of females. Most tumours were only detected after 18 months...

By the beginning of the 24th month of the study, 50-80% of all female rats had developed tumors in the GMO- and Roundup-exposed groups—with some rats having up to 3 tumors.

It is important to note that increased tumors and organ damage were found in rats who were given Roundup in their water with no GMO feed. In other words, Roundup by itself, without GMO grain, has the potential to do great damage to the body, even at very low doses. (The lowest dose was intended to mimic the minute trace amount found in some tap water.)

But the potential damages of Roundup go beyond tumors. As noted earlier, Roundup is very toxic to gut bacteria, which are important for proper digestion of food. Glyphosate also inhibits enzymes that the body uses to detoxify itself and produce bile acids for digestion of food. This means that, by destroying the body’s natural defenses, Roundup can enhance the effects of other toxins we absorb from our food and environment. It also means that Roundup can cause the digestive system to work less effectively than it should.

In other words, we see a one-two punch here: destruction of gut bacteria and reduction of digestive function. When the bowel is malfunctioning, we are unable to absorb all the minerals and vitamins that we need from our food. This can lead to all kinds of disease. Researchers Anthony Samsel and Stephanie Seneff have shown the great possibility of a link between glyphosate and many different diseases, including gastrointestinal disorders, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, depression, autism, infertility, cancer and Alzheimer’s disease. (See link at the end.)

But is this actually happening in our society? Is Roundup actually causing disease, or is this empty hypothesizing? Nancy Swanson, former staff scientist for the US Navy, has plotted the rise in the use of glyphosate against the rise in various diseases. The graphs are significant:

Compare this graph with the following one showing the total amount of sweeteners used over the same time period (top, purple line). The total amount of sweeteners used has actually dropped while diabetes has risen:

How much glyphosate are we actually getting in our food? After all, the government has set limits on the level of glyphosate in our food. But how do we know if anyone is actually abiding by those standards? Samsel and Seneff state:

“It is difficult to get information on actual amounts of glyphosate present in foods, due to the perception that it is nontoxic to humans [1,6]. The USDA Pesticide Data Program (PDP) is a voluntary program which randomly monitors agricultural chemical residues in the food supply. A search of the most recent data for 2010, published in May 2012, found statistics for the most popular agricultural chemicals except for glyphosate and glufosinate, another organophosphate. Residue data for the most popular herbicide on the planet were not available, but, interestingly, information on atrazine and other herbicides were readily available. Communication with USDA revealed that no data were available due to lack of monitoring. However, in 2013, for the first time, the USDA will be releasing a small amount of data for glyphosate residues only in soy. Lack of program funding was cited as the reason for this lack of data.” (emphasis mine)

The National Pesticide Information Center confirms this:“Glyphosate was not included in compounds tested for by the Food and Drug Adminstration’s (FDA) Pesticide Residue Monitoring Program (PRMP), nor in the United States Department of Agriculture’s Pesticide Data Program (PDP).”http://npic.orst.edu/factsheets/glyphotech.html

It’s strange that the government is not testing for the #1 agricultural chemical in America! Obviously, if you don’t look for it, you won’t find it. With glyphosate being sprayed all over our food, there’s no telling how much the average American ingests on a daily basis. Those 185 million pounds of glyphosate have to go somewhere.

One thing is certain: we are eating glyphosate. A recent German study found glyphosate residues in the urine of dairy cows, rabbits and humans. These people and animals were not just consuming glyphosate-contaminated food, but were actually absorbing the glyphosate into their bloodstream and circulating it throughout the whole body. Not surprisingly, glyphosate residues were significantly lower in people eating an organic diet than those eating a conventional diet. One very interesting finding was that chronically ill humans had significantly higher levels of glyphosate in their urine than healthy humans.

What are we to do? If the government won’t protect us, who will? You. We must each take our own health in our own hands and get serious about removing this toxic antibiotic from our diet if we don’t want to be included on those graphs of disease. This starts with the cereal you eat for breakfast, the sandwich you eat at lunch and the chicken you eat for dinner. If it’s not organically raised, assume it has glyphosate residues. This includes the tortilla chips that are made with organic corn and fried in conventional, glyphosate-treated vegetable oil. Since the glyphosate residues are part of the food itself, they cannot be washed off, and they are not broken down by cooking.

It is important to cut through the chatter and find truly organic food. Be discerning and ask questions. One farm about an hour from us claims to “go beyond organic”—yet they told us that they used GMO feed for their animals. Other farms, recognizing the dangers of GMO’s, use non-organic, GMO-free feed. However, GMO-free is not necessarily glyphosate-free. It is standard practice for many farmers to spray their fields with Roundup before planting to kill weeds. According to the National Pesticide Information Center, “Lettuce, carrots, and barley contained glyphosate residues up to one year after the soil was treated with 3.71 pounds of glyphosate per acre.” Given that the Séralini rat study showed increased disease in rats who consumed only 0.1 parts per billion of Roundup in their drinking water (i.e., one drop in over 130,000 gallons of water), even a small amount of glyphosate residue is problematic.

Some organic farms, due to the cost of organic feed, feed their chickens conventional feed. They cannot call the chicken or eggs organic, but they can say it was raised on an organic farm. Take nothing for granted!

Fourteen years ago, during our first year of farming, we switched to organic feed for our chickens. This currently means paying over three times more for our feed than if we used conventional feed, but we don’t regret our decision. It is part of our quest to give you healthy, nourishing food that helps you to live better and stay out of the doctor’s office.

I encourage you to make the hard choices. Stop feeding yourself antibiotics that kill the “good guys” and help the “bad guys”. Buy real. Buy healthy. Buy glyphosate-free!

Recently our family watched “Frontier House”, a PBS historical reality series that first aired in 2002. Three modern families were selected to go back in time to 1883 on the America Frontier in Montana during the Homestead Act. Each family needed to establish their homestead as if they were living in 1883, and prepare food and firewood for the coming Montana winter. Would they be able to survive the winter?

One of the things that stood out to our family was how little food that they actually had for the winter. The growing and preservation of food for the winter seemed to be way too low on their priority list. They had small gardens and did not have much set aside to make it through the winter and the spring until the next summer’s harvest came in.

Most modern families, by going to the grocery store two or three times a week, buying lunch at school or at work, and eating out several times a week, do not realize how much food that they actually eat in a year’s time. I went to the mom of our largest chicken customer and asked her how much food her family needs in a year’s time. It is a family of eight that produces a lot of its own food and tries to source as much local food as possible.

This is her list (It is not a complete list of everything they eat in a year’s time):

250 chickens a year
10 25 lb turkeys
5 to 6 dozen eggs a week
one beef cow a year
1 1/2 to 2 gallons of milk a day
plus 1 to 1 1/2 quarts of yogurt a day, 5 lbs of cheese a week, and 4 lbs of butter a week

It is hard to believe that one family would eat that much food, but I know it is true because it is our family. We made a decision a number of years ago, that if we wanted our family to be healthy, we needed to opt out of the grocery store/ restaurant food system (including the organic grocery stores) as much as possible and produce our own food. Our observation has been that most of the people who eat that food are not as healthy as they should be. That is evidenced with around 70 percent of the US population being on at least one pharmaceutical drug. Our family’s goal is not to be food independent, self-sustaining, or homesteaders, but to be healthy. Health is often taken for granted until one is sick or lacks energy. Life is too short to live it in an unhealthy state and not be able to enjoy life as one should. It is much easier to eat right to stay healthy, than to try to get healthy once we get sick.

The nutrient value of all the foods that we eat is more important than what most people realize. We try to grow as high brix and as nutrient dense food as we can. We are what we eat. It is difficult to be healthy if the food is low in necessary nutrients and when the chemicals and antibiotics in the foods are working against us.

In one of the upcoming newsletters we will be sharing with you about a harmful antibiotic that is in much of conventionally produced, non-organic (and non-GMO) foods. We found out about this harmful antibiotic a little over a month ago.

Have you heard about an organic option in Obamacare? An option that allows people who are organic or who want their bodies to be as organic as possible to choose the organic healthcare option instead of traditional drug based medicine. There are a growing number of people who are not interested in the services of the conventional healthcare that relies heavily on drugs and antibiotics. They want to be as organic as possible and not put into their bodies the chemicals and drugs of traditional medicine. Organic healthcare is the new and cutting edge of a new type of modern medicine, especially with the growing amount of antibiotic resistant superbugs.

Unfortunately, we have not heard of an organic option in Obamacare either. Therefore, our family has been searching for resources that give organic solutions to health problems so that hopefully we do not need the services of the traditional healthcare system with its chemical and drug “solutions”. We have purchased a number of books for our organic medical library. The following are some of the best books that we have found. They are not listed in any particular order of importance. Many of these books are available on Amazon and you can read reviews about them there.

The Survival Medicine Handbook – A guide for when medical help is NOT on the way
2nd edition by Joseph Alton and Amy Alton

Be Your Own “Doctor” by Rachel Weaver
This is an excellent practical book. One caution—some of the remedies recommend an herbal tea. If you use tea, do not neglect to drink plenty of pure water as well. Drinking plenty of pure water is one of the most neglected things that results in poor health.

Our daughter, Kara, used information from this book for the basis of formulating her Everyday Miracles Salve that has been so helpful for me and others.

Be Your Child’s Pediatrician by Rachel Weaver

Also Back Yard Pharmacy by Rachel Weaver

Homegrown Herbs: A Complete Guide to Growing, Using, and Enjoying More than 100 Herbs
by Tammi Hartung

Practical Herbalism by Philip Fritchey
Highly recommended to us by one of our customers.

The Forager’s Harvest by Samuel Thayer

A guide to identifying, harvesting, and preparing edible wild plants

Herbal Recipes for Vibrant Health by Rosemary GladstarCathy took Rosemary Gladstar’s workshop at the Mother Earth News Fair last fall and was impressed with how knowledgeable and helpful she was.

Also Medicinal Herbs: A Beginner’s Guide by Rosemary Gladstar

Backyard MedicineHarvest and Make Your Own Herbal RemediesJulie Bruton-Seal and Matthew Seal

In the first seven years here on our farm, we have sequestered over 325,500 lbs of Soil Organic Carbon on 35 acres. We have sequestered as much carbon as the yearly CO2 output from approximately 146 cars. That was accomplished by increasing the soil organic matter on most of the farmland by almost one percentage point. That is without spreading organic matter or fertilizers other than lime. The only manure was the droppings from chickens when they are on the pasture and from the sheep and cows while they are grazing.

The method that we used to sequester the carbon was letting the grass grow a foot or more tall and then grazing or mowing the grass and letting it decompose into the soil. This is a method that we discovered as we mowed the grass in the American chestnut orchard located here on the farm and observed the significant increased growth of the grass and the increased growth, vigor, health, and blight resistance of the American chestnut trees. Grasses have approximately the same amount of root mass and depth as the mass and height of grass above the ground. When the grass is mowed from a height of 24″ down to 4″, the roots slough off from a depth of 24″ to approximately 4″. As these roots decompose, they build organic matter in the soil to the depth the roots had been. It is not just organic matter on the surface of the ground from the mowed grass.

The soil tests that we took are just of the top 6″ of soil and do not represent any increase in organic matter below 6″. It would be interesting to test the soil at a greater depth. The soil test from A&L Eastern Labs tested at the end of 2013 shows that the front pasture closest to the road had an organic matter percentage of 4.6%. A soil test from the small parcel of ungrazed fallow grassland adjacent to the road was used as a control to compare with the front pasture soil test since we do not have soil tests before we started managing the farmland. That small parcel of fallow grassland in years past had been part of the front pasture. That area had soil organic matter of 3.8%. 3% organic matter is considered good soil and 1% is not uncommon on cropland. The soil tests show an increase of .8% organic matter in the front pasture.

Our goal is to build enough organic matter in the soil to try to “drought proof” the pastures and to make the soil like a sponge so that there is very little water runoff when there is a heavy rain. Carbon acts like a sponge and holds moisture and other nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorous and keeps them from being leached out of the soil into the Bay. The carbon then releases the water and nutrients to the plants as needed.

One method that we have experimented with to increase the carbon content of the grasses was to spray the grass with a mist of a mixture that consisted of water, raw milk from our cows, a little honey, and some eggs. The milk, honey and egg mixture increases the photosynthesis of the leaves and increases the brix/sugar (which is high carbon) content of the grasses about three percentage points. The sugar is transported from the leaves to the roots. In theory, if we can increase the sugar/carbon production in the leaves of the pasture grasses we should be able to increase the amount of carbon that we can sequester in the soil. We want to experiment with this some more. Last year we did not have enough milk.